A Battlestar Galactica / Starcraft crossover

Chapter One:

First Contact

Terran Dominion Naval Battle Group Trondheim

In orbit above Miller's Landing

June 11, 2510

"Hit them again."

Fleet Admiral Ali Abdullah Mujawar's lips pulled back in a feral smile as he watched the holographic display that dominated the center of DNS Stalingrad's Combat Information Center. The first Yamato Cannon strike had torn most of the unholy bastard's back off; as he watched pieces of flesh broke off and gases from inside the beast transport vented in massive steam clouds. No blood though, the cannon shot had cauterized the wound.

"Yes sir," Senior Captain Rachel Hoffman said as she glanced down at her tactical readout. It would take almost a full minute before the Stalingrad's energy banks had recharged for another shot. Luckily she was far from the only ship in Battle Group Trondheim that mounted the weapon. She stabbed her finger down on the comm console.

"Werewolf, target your Yamato on the Leviathan."

"Acknowledged Stalingrad," Captain Jansson replied. The display shifted as DNS Werewolf, an older Minotaur-class battlecruiser, swung its bow up and to the left until it was pointed directly at the Leviathan's head. Hoffman and Mujawar watched as the beam lanced out from Werewolf's bow, obliterating over a dozen unlucky Mutalisks that got in the way before punching through the Leviathan's head.

"Nice shot Werewolf," Hoffman said. "Leviathan's vital signs are dropping. I think we killed it, sir."

Mujawar nodded, watching as another missile salvo roared out of the arsenal ship DNS Broadsword. The arsenal ship had come into being following the invasion of Korhal five years ago. Pretty much they were just a converted Hercules-class transport reinforced with armor plating, mounting point-defense guns and packed to the brim with missile pods and fire control computers. It was designed specifically to gut Zerg swarms at long range and the missiles themselves were armed with biggest, nastiest, dirtiest nuclear warheads the Terran Dominion could manufacture.

Emperor Valerian might have forgiven Kerrigan, he might actually even trust her, but I know how much promises from that bitch are worth, Mujawar thought. So does the rest of the military. Mujawar reached up with his left hand and rubbed the scar tissue on his cheek. He had been on the NORAD III when Kerrigan had turned on them after they had broken the back of the United Earth Directorate fleet and liberated Korhal. He had been one of only seventeen people to have survived the ship's destruction. Yes, he knew how much promises from the Queen of Blades were worth.

"Still wonder how she got into the Protoss' good graces," he muttered under his breath.

"Sir?" Hoffman asked.

"Nothing Rachel," he said as he glanced towards his flag captain. "Just talking to myself."

His eyes swung back towards the tactical display and watched as the Broadsword's missiles took out the last two remaining Overlords along with their escorting Mutalisks and Vipers. Fleet Command said the Zerg that were infesting Miller's Landing were Feral, not part of Kerrigan's Swarm. Maybe they were and maybe they weren't; after all, who really expected Kerrigan to honestly abide by the agreement to completely pull out any remaining Zerg from Terran Space?

With the last remnants of command and control gone, the Mutalisk and Viper cloud dissolved into a frenzy; attacking each other almost as much as they attacked Mujawar's ships and the attacks they did manage to launch weren't coordinated. ZK-12 gauss-flak guns and ATA/ATS laser batteries blasted them as they came while squadrons of Vikings cut through them. But this was just the after-show.

The main Zerg forces in the space around Miller's Landing had been eliminated at the cost of two destroyers and a light cruiser destroyed and one of his battlecruisers crippled. Now came the hard part; rooting the bastards out planet-side and reestablishing the colonies. Within the hour Battle Group Trondheim would begin launching orbital kinetic and limited nuclear strikes to bust up the main Zerg concentrations before landing three divisions of the Dominion Army to mop up.

Probably were Feral, Mujawar thought as he folded his arms across his chest. Kerrigan's Swarm would have put up more of a fight.

"Sir, Black Dog Lead reports they are picking up new radar contacts," Commander Kurt Ramius, Mujawar's tactical officer, yelled suddenly. "Three new bogies bearing four-nine, mark one-zero-nine."

"Zerg?" Hoffman asked.

"I don't know, sir," Ramius replied. "Black Dog Lead says the radar return doesn't look like any Zerg, Terran or even Protoss ship they have ever seen before. They look to be about fighter size; in fact they are giving less of a return than Vikings normally do. Range four hundred and eighty-four kilometers." He turned away from his console and looked at Mujawar directly. "But sir, we did pick them up right next to the dead Leviathan."

"Order Black Dog Lead to get a visual," Mujawar said.

Raptor Recon Patrol

"Oh Holy Frak, that is one frakking ugly ass mother-frakker," Lieutenant Jay "Shark" Finnegan yelled as he yanked hard on the Raptor's stick; just managing to pull up before they scrapped the side of the…thing.

"You aren't gonna get any argument from me there," Ensign Sarah "Easy" Esrin said beside him as she stared out at the creature. Or at least she thought it was a creature, though how something could live and breathe in vacuum was beyond her. Even Cylon Raiders cloaked their organic components in metal for a reason.

"Hex, Bingo!" Finnegan yelled over the comms. "Report in."

"We're fine. Gods can you…OH HOLY HERA," Bingo screamed as what looked like a skull-faced worm with leathery wings spat a glowing green glob at him, just barely missing his Raptor's fuselage.

"Take this you frakking son of a bitch," Bingo yelled as triggered his auto-cannons; firing a burst into the winged worms head. "Gods, what the hell was that thing? Frak that, what the hell is that thing? It is bigger than the Galactica!"

"I don't know," Finnegan yelled back. The size of thing wasn't what really bothered him though. No what really bothered him was something had ripped several massive holes in it. They weren't asteroid or meteor hits either. The cuts in the flesh were too smooth, too uniform, damn they were even cauterized. No, what made those wounds had to be a weapon of some sort and he didn't want to stick around to meet whoever, or whatever, was capable of inflicting that kind of damage on something so massive.

"Talk to me Easy," he said. "What else have we got out here?"

"DRADIS is picking up hundreds of signals, sir. Most appear to be fighter size; probably more of those Flying Skull Worms that attacked Bingo," Esrin said. She paused for the moment as she concentrated on the computer read-out. "It's hard to tell because this…creature is blocking half damn signal. But it looks like there are about three dozen or so large contacts close to five hundred klicks out bearing one-eight-seven, carom one…"

"How big?" Finnegan asked, glancing at the space monster laying dead to their side.

"Four hundred meters plus. Again sir, it's hard to say," Esrin said.

Great, so it's either this thing's offspring or a pack of whatever killed it, Finnegan thought. Either one was bad news. The Old Man had sent them out to look for tylium deposits, not space monsters; time to get the frak back home as far as Finnegan was concerned.

"Toasters!" Hex yelled over the wireless and Finnegan's eyes snapped up just in time to see the first of the Cylon Raiders swinging around the ruined head of the space monster.

"Well I guess we know what killed it," Finnegan muttered under his breath. How odd, though, that these Raiders appeared to be earlier models left over from the First Cylon War. Heh, he thought. Thought we had destroyed the last of those when we took out the Guardian basestar.

Black Dog Lead

"This is Black Dog Lead to Stalingrad," Lieutenant Commander Richard "Death Dealer" Farkas said as he banked his Viking around the shattered hulk of the Feral Zerg Leviathan with the rest of the 1st Squadron of the 413th Fighter Wing, the Black Dogs, following. "We have unidentified ships in sight. They look Terran, repeat, Terran. Do not recognize make or model though."

"Acknowledged Black Dog Lead," came the reply. "Can you see any markings that might identify who they belong to?"

"Got something on the fuselage," Farkas said as he zoomed in with his gun camera. "Looks like a blue and gold circle with flames in the center; writing around the edges, can't make it out the words though. Going to try hailing th…"

Three missiles launched from the nearest ship, screaming towards Farkas' Viking. The fighter's computer reacted faster than he did, immediately popping countermeasures while the Guardian laser point defense system, standard on Dominion Vikings since the B series was introduced three years ago, opened up, downing the lead missile. He pulled the Viking into a hard right turn, g-forces slamming him back into his seat as the fighter accelerated, but it proved unnecessary, the rest of the squadron managed to down the other two missiles.

"Stalingrad they just shot at us," he said.

"Weapons free, Black Dog Lead," Hoffman said over the comm. "Take them down."

Raptor Recon Patrol

"Frak, was that an energy weapon?" Esrin yelled. "When did the Toasters manage to build that?"

"Probably the same time they built the fleet that nuked the Colonies! Spool up the FTL now!" Finnegan ordered. "We are about swarmed by Chromejobs and we need to get this information back to the Old Man!"

"Shit, frak that," Hex yelled over the wireless. "Got two minutes before my FTL is ready! Might was well kill me some Toasters today if it's the last thing I am going to do!" He stabbed his finger on the console and flushed the remaining missiles in his pods in the direction of the incoming Raiders. Bingo immediately followed suite.

"Frak it, flush the pods Easy," Finnegan said. The Raptor shuddered as the missiles flew out of their tubes. The incoming Raiders broke formation, chaff exploding from under their wings while the lasers stabbed out. But this time there was too many missiles for their defenses to handle. Hex howled as three of the Raiders blew apart outright while a fourth spun out of control and smashed into the side of the massive dead beast. But then the remaining eleven came in full bore.

"Easy, Hex, Bingo, how long till the FTLs are ready?" Finnegan asked as the Raiders broke up into three separate groups; four gunning for Hex and three apiece for his Raptor and Bingo's.

"One minute, thirty seconds for me. Relax Shark, we can take them. We have faced worse odds before and there ain't no way a Toaster can outfly us," Hex said as he triggered an autocannon burst into the leading Raider but the enemy's armor held.

"Oh Frak," Hex hissed as he pulled on the stick, banking hard as all four of the Raiders targeting him fired in unison.

"How heavily armored are these things?" Hex screamed as he triggered another burst into another Raider with no effect. The space around the Leviathan descended into a furball as Finnegan's Raptors engaged in brutal dogfight with the Cylon Raiders.

They're not old style Raiders,Finnegan realized as he fired his autocannons into a Raider's underbelly and was rewarded as flames shot out and rolled along the underside of the enemy fighter. They were too heavily armored, too fast and there was something very odd about the way they were constructed; it looked almost like they had legs tucked up into the fuselage. Not to mention that laser point defense system. After all, why would the Cylons put something like that on a platform that was several decades obsolete when the newer Raiders lacked it? No, these Raiders were something new.

But now the enemy's superior numbers began to tell. There was a faint scream over the wireless as Bingo's Raptor blew up.

"Sir!" Esrin yelled. "More Toasters incoming!"

Finnegan looked up and snarled as twenty more Raiders came screaming around the front of the dead space beast. This wasn't a fight they were going to win.

"Hex, we're leaving," Finnegan ordered. "Easy, the FTL ready?"

"Yes," she said.

"Mine is t…" Hex died mid-sentence as a Raider blew his cockpit to pieces.

"Frak, Easy punch it," Finnegan screamed. Esrin's hand reached for the control but three enemy rounds punched through the cockpit windows and slammed into her, shredding her upper torso into a bright red mist that was promptly sucked out through the holes the shells made coming in. Finnegan didn't even think, he just reached over and stabbed his finger down on the control panel. The Raptor jumped, narrowly missing another autocannon burst.

Author's Note: I am trying to portray the Dominion Navy as a real fleet, which means more warship types as opposed to the vanilla game. Destroyers and cruisers are mentioned in the Starcraft books so I am not exactly on shaky ground here. Also since this story takes place five years after Heart of the Swarm I felt it was only natural that new weapons and warship classes had been introduced and existing platforms had undergone upgrades. I am assuming Kerrigan and the Protoss succeed in killing the Big Bad in the next installment of course. In the Galactica time line; this takes place shortly after the events depicted in Razor but before Lay Down Your Burdens.